1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to joining first and second separable portions of the same item or of different items in overlapping relation. In its preferred embodiment, it relates to a novel and highly effective strap for wrapping around and snugly securing various articles such as luggage and protecting them against appropriation by unauthorized persons.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Straps, ropes, lines, etc. (herein collectively referred to as straps), for securing various articles are well known and very useful. For example, travelers use straps to reinforce luggage, to tie two or more pieces of luggage (or their handles) together so that they do not become separated, or as means for suspending luggage, cameras, or other items from a shoulder or a hand. Students wrap straps around books or other articles to facilitate carrying them or simply to keep them together. Vacationing families use straps anchored to a roof rack for securing articles on the roof of a station wagon. Shippers and warehousers use straps to secure goods on a pallet so that they can be handled by a forklift without falling off the pallet.
In all of these examples, the ends of the straps are conventionally secured to each other or to another anchoring structure by buckles or knots fastened or tied by hand, or by crimps or the like imposed by special, and expensive, strapping machinery. Unless strapping machinery is used, conventional straps are hard to tighten sufficiently to prevent articles from slipping out. After manually tightening straps to tie down a load atop a station wagon, for example, one often finds that the straps still have considerable slack in them. Moreover, anyone, whether authorized or not, can usually manually undo straps that have been manually secured. Failure to tighten a strap enough may permit articles to slip out so that they become damaged or lost. The ease with which conventional straps can be undone leaves the articles they secure vulnerable to theft.
An object of the invention is to remedy the problems of conventional straps noted above. In particular, objects of the invention include providing a mechanism for taking up slack in a deployed strap and providing a strap that can be securely tightened around one or more articles and that cannot be loosened by unauthorized persons.
The foregoing and other objects of the invention are attained by apparatus comprising first and second separable portions to be joined in overlapping relation, a ratchet operable with the portions joined in overlapping relation for increasing the amount of overlap, thereby effectively shortening the strap and taking up slack, and a lock that can be locked to prevent, or unlocked to enable, separation of the portions. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the separable portions are opposite ends of the same strap for wrapping around at least one article, but the invention can also be used to join a strap to one or more separate anchoring structures or to join two straps together.